The certain signs of spring are all around us. Dragons are gliding through the sky, sunlight glinting off of their leathery wings.
British army nurse Claire Randall is back (way back), navigating the Outlander ways of life and love in the 1740s.
Spring is officially here, and, on television, it’s all about fantasy.
One the most widely anticipated event in TV’s spring of fantasy is the fifth-season premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones. The acclaimed cable drama based on George R.R. Martin’s fantasy novels returns at 9 p.m. Sunday, April 12.
Set in a fictional world while drawing on all kinds of historical events, Game of Thrones has dragons and double-dealings, sorcery and swordplay, beheadings and betrayals, romance and revenge, and just a never-ending banquet of delicious plots and subplots. It is a fantasy game played at the highest level.
But it’s not the only game in town, not by any stretch of the imagination. For one, there’s Outlander, another cable drama that specializes in stretching the imagination.
This Starz series became a fantasy phenomenon when it premiered last August. Caitriona Balfe stars as Claire, the nurse mysteriously swept from 1945 to 1743 — and into the arms of dashing Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan).
The romantic drama from executive producer Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica) begins the second half of its 16-episode first season at 9 p.m. Saturday, April 4. When we left Claire at the end of episode eight in September, she was in the clutches of Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies).
Starz boasts that Outlander spans the genres “of romance, science fiction, history and adventure.”
